An announcement that an item scheduled to be heard by the Planning Commission Monday night would be continued to a future meeting, turned into a complaint session about the Malibu Farmers’ Market.
Upon hearing that the commission would not hear Monday night the annual review of the Farmers’ Market conditional use permit, Malibu Knolls resident Chris Benjamin shouted from the audience, “When are we going to get a chance to speak Mr. Chairman?”
City Planner Raneika Brooks-McClain said the item was being continued because research was still being done after it was discovered during the summer that the Civic Center property where the Cornucopia Foundations holds its weekly Sunday Farmers’ Market was not zoned for commercial use. City staff was still looking at how to address the issue.
This did not, however, prevent Benjamin from speaking up. Benjamin, who lives near where the market takes place, said Cornucopia uses sound amplification that it does not have a permit for. In a Tuesday telephone interview, Cornucopia President Debra Bianco said she had spoken to the president of the Malibu Knolls Homeowners Association, Mike Barsocchini, and he did not share Benjamin’s concerns. Barsocchini could not be reached to confirm whether that was true.
Following the meeting, four community service members from the Kiwanis and Lions clubs said Cornucopia did things beyond what it had permits for with its market, and that it functioned more as a flea market than as a farmers’ market.
“They think they don’t have to follow the rules like everyone else does,” Kiwanis Club member Marissa Coughlin said.
Bianco said Tuesday that Cornucopia does follow the rules, and most people know and appreciate that. She added that Coughlin does not represent the views of most Kiwanis Club members, who appreciate Cornucopia. She said the three Lions Club members who attended the meeting with the intention to speak against Cornucopia also did not represent the common view of most Lions members.
In addition, Bianco said she thought it was inappropriate that the group came to the meeting in the wake of the sudden death of Cornucopia Secretary/Treasurer Denny Mellé’s husband, Gil.
“They knew about his death and that we would not be there [at the meeting],” she said. “They could have had the morale to wait to do this.”